Nearly a hundred people participated in a candlelight vigil last night in support of anti-war figure Cindy Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq last year. The event, one of a dozen such gatherings across the state, was atop a hill in Kalihi Valley at the end of Elua Street.
Calling for peace
Isle gatherings support
a California woman
protesting the Iraq war
Nearly 100 people gathered in the back yard of a hilltop house in Kalihi Valley last night to light candles in sympathy for a California woman protesting her 24-year-old son's death in Iraq.
"She's just a mother among other mothers," said Cecile Smith, 68, "but she's a catalyst, it seems."
It was one of nearly a dozen such gatherings across Hawaii and hundreds across the nation urged by Cindy Sheehan, whose own vigil at a makeshift camp near President Bush's Crawford, Texas, ranch began Aug. 6 to honor her son Casey, who was killed in Iraq last year.
Smith, whose nephew is serving in Iraq, stood for 45 minutes with a candle in her hand and only one wish in her mind.
"We should get out now," she said. "Our young men and women are dying out there. It's scary."
Sheehan, of Vacaville, Calif., has vowed to remain through Bush's month-long ranch visit unless he meets with her and other grieving families.
"I'm very moved by one person making a difference," said Kalihi resident Charmaine Crockett, who hosted the vigil at her house.
Sheehan and Benjamin Hart, who served with the Army in Iraq, led a vigil last night at her anti-war roadside encampment near President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas.
More than 1,600 similar gatherings planned across the country, according to advocacy groups MoveOn.org Political Action, TrueMajority and Democracy for America.
The vigils come as Sheehan's demonstration enters its second week. Her determination to stay put at the site has gained national attention, and hundreds of protesters as well as Bush supporters holding counter-rallies have flocked to the site.
Crockett said she advertised the event happening at her home earlier this week on MoveOn.org after learning no vigils had been planned in Hawaii in support of Sheehan.
"This isn't an anti-war protest. The beauty of it lies in its silence," said Crockett, who in the past has organized a public viewing of Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" on a giant screen in Chinatown.
"I never expected it to get this large," she said of the vigils. "I think underneath everyone wants peace in the end."
Monica Evans, whose husband is serving with the Army in the Green Zone in Baghdad, said not enough Americans have been personally touched by the war the way she and Sheehan have.
"The war has ripped my heart," said Evans, president of the Hawaii chapter of Military Families Speak Out. "It's like my husband is dying, but he has not died yet."
Evans, who heard Sheehan speak last March at a meeting of peace organizations in Fayetteville, N.C., said she also does not want an immediate pullout of the troops, but an assurance that the process of scaling back troop numbers would begin today.
"We want the process to start now," Evans said.
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Anti-war vigils
light up nation
More than 1,600 such events,
and one in Paris, were planned
CRAWFORD, Texas » Hundreds of candlelight vigils calling for an end to the war in Iraq lit up the night yesterday, part of a national effort spurred by one mother's anti-war demonstration near President Bush's ranch.
The vigils were urged by Cindy Sheehan, who has become the icon of the anti-war movement since she started a protest Aug. 6 in memory of her son Casey, who was killed in Iraq last year.
Sheehan says she will remain outside the president's ranch until he meets with her and other grieving families, or until his month-long vacation there ends.
Bush has said he sympathizes with Sheehan, but has given no indication he will meet with her. Two top Bush administration officials talked to Sheehan the day she started her camp, and she and other families had met with Bush shortly after her son's death.
More than 1,600 vigils were planned yesterday from coast to coast by advocacy groups MoveOn.org Political Action, TrueMajority and Democracy for America. A large vigil was also planned in Paris.
As the sun set in Crawford, about 200 protesters lit candles and gathered around a wooden, flag-draped coffin at Sheehan's growing camp, about a mile from the Bush ranch.
"For the more than 1,800 who have come home this way in flag-draped coffins, each one ... was a son or a daughter, not cannon fodder to be used so recklessly," Sheehan told the crowd, which then sang "Amazing Grace."
Before the vigil, Gary Qualls of Temple drove to Sheehan's camp and removed a wooden cross bearing his son's name. He said he supports the war and disagrees with Sheehan.
"I don't believe in some of the things happening here," he said. "I find it disrespectful."
Near Philadelphia's Independence Hall, a few hundred people strained to hear the parent of another soldier killed in Iraq. "This war must stop," said Al Zappala, 65, whose 30-year-old son, Sgt. Sherwood Baker, died in an explosion in Baghdad in April 2004.
Some critics say Sheehan is exploiting her son's death to promote a left-wing agenda. They say scores of Americans, including relatives of soldiers killed in Iraq, support Bush and his plans to keep troops there.
FreeRepublic.com, which holds rallies to support troops, held a pro-Bush rally last night with about 20 people at the same time and same Washington park as a candlelight vigil that drew about 300.
At a vigil in Charleston, W.Va., a banner bearing the name, age, rank, hometown and date of death of all Americans killed in Iraq and Afghanistan was unrolled -- stretching the length of a city block.
Actor Richard Dreyfuss attended a vigil in the Studio City area of Los Angeles with his son and about 500 others.
"Cindy Sheehan is making a starting point with the questions she is asking, and it's not unpatriotic to ask them," Dreyfuss said. "It's actually a higher form of patriotism."
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